To See Green Again
by FaeCinders
Summary: When the Gate opens in downtown Boston, Super Mutants are the first to claim it. As new breeds of super mutants are overwhelming the Commonwealth, forces on both sides of the Gate attempt to stop the reign of green monsters. While a new hope awakens, a new nightmare rises.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not have any rights to either Gate or Fallout_

 **Post Gate Opening, approx. 5 days**

 **Downtown Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts**

"Huh," Valentine mused aloud, alone in the dark alleys that made up old Boston. He had recently taken a case from the Mayor of Diamond City, and was tracking his meager handful of clues to a known raider stronghold when he came across something strange. "I've heard of Caesar and his Legion," he continued speaking to himself, "but I didn't think he would be operating in the Commonwealth."

Yet that was the only explanation Valentine could think of as he stared at the dead man. It seemed so... awkward, the body was swathed in a crimson tunic, with sandals laced up its calf and probably had worn a heavy chest plate judging by the straps on his back. As far as Valentine knew, no one in the Wasteland would care enough to replicate a ancient roman soldier, yet that's what was lying face down in a pool of muck and rainwater, in the middle of downtown Boston.

However, guessing at the fist sized holes that were liberally ripped out of that same back; the armor wasn't heavy enough.

"My, my," the detective mused to himself, squatting down next to the body, "these are most interesting times indeed." Idly he reached a synthetic hand out and undid the straps holding what was left of the legionaries cuirass to his body. With a small splash, the leather came undone and slid from the dead man, allowing Valentine to roll him over and start searching for pockets. The Commonwealth was not a place for the squeamish, and it might give Valentine some insight as to why Caesar was sending the Legion so far north.

"Aha," he muttered to himself as he fished a scrap of paper from the dead man's tunic. Silently, Nick hoped that this was some prank gone horribly wrong, because if the Legion had its eyes on the Commonwealth and if even half of what he heard about their macabre games was true, life would get even more interesting. And he wasn't sure just how _interesting_ life could get here until something broke and society burned. Again.

He sighed softly, feeling the his respirator clacking away just beneath his faux ribs; he would have to check with a mechanic about that soon, a cough would really put a crimp into his stealth missions. Standing up, he unfolded the crumpled piece of paper, looking over the words that were delicately inked into the surface. Although, now that he looked at it, he couldn't really tell if they were words - he didn't recognize any of the strange symbols. _Is Caesar crazy enough to start making up his own language?_ For anyone else, Valentine would shrug that off as a joke, but this was Caesar, and he was hardly normal by any account.

 _I guess that I'll have to do this the hard way,_ he thought to himself, as his mechanical eyes scanning the Legionaries body for any more clues. Settling his eyes on the grey ground beyond the body, Nick could make out faint footprints in the old dust and piles of refuse, as well as darker patches of blood. Heavier boot prints, probably from Raiders, were oriented around the ambushed legionary. _Poor guy,_ Nick thought, _at least his end was quick._ Which was, by and large, the most anyone could ask for in this wasteland.

Sighing again, he began to back track the Legates trek through the city.

 **~T-45d~**

Markus continued to shiver uncontrollably in the shed, trying desperately to suppress his blood laden coughs. _Curse this world! Curse the Emperor, and curse that fool Cardreg!_ If that idiot had only recognized that this world was a poisoned hell when they had stepped through Alnus Gate, everyone might still be alive, not dragged off by giant green men.

He couldn't hold his breath well enough; another round of wracking coughs shook his body and he painted the side of the tin shed with more crimson blood. What few men he had left with him were not doing much better. Of his forty soldiers, ten had survived the ambush by the giants, where the Imperial Army had been caught in a plaza and butchered from all sides by massive rotating wands that spat flame. Their fiendish laughter and taunts still assailed his ears, though his men had broken the cordon and escaped days ago.

And in those days, five more of his men succumbed to the invisible poison that tainted the land, permeating the foods, the water, and the very bodies of its inhabitants. They were not good deaths. Christofe died drowning in his own blood as they slept. Jaks died of infection the same night; their first night here. Gordon was struck by lightning as a freakish green storm rolled over the city, and Fend not long after; he had been near the strike and shortly, his hair and nails had fallen out, his eyes began to rot and he tried to beg through the bile that clogged his throat to be given a merciful death before the poison took him. Their most recent casualty had been Shenji; crablike creatures had burst from the water's edge and tore him apart on their claws while the rest of the group fled.

Now, without the water that the crabs had been guarding, what few men remained with Marcus had only a day or two left to live, if the rotting poison didn't take them all first. They were starving in the cold darkness of the shed; the air was chill yet Markus felt as though his skin was burning, like a particularly hot day in the summer.

He ran a hand over his scalp, fighting back the growing nausea, and his hand came away plastered with his dark blond hair. Soon enough, his hair would start falling out without the meagre pressure his hand provided, and then he would go the same way as Fend.

 _There has to be a way out, I am Markus, nephew of Moltose, and a mere hell is not worthy of my death._ He tried to stand straight, letting his armor support as much of his back as it could, and reached for his glades. _I will go back to the Gate,_ A new round of coughs slammed through his chest, ripping something in his nose as his eyes bled from the pressure.

 _I will make it through the Gate,_ he spat blood to the floor and wiped his face on his tattered sleeve. Gripping his sword firmly, he began to gently kick his troops awake.

 _We will warn the Empire of these foul creatures. G_ roaning, three of his men rose looking at his panting visage for a brief second before grabbing their own gear.

 _We will warn the Empire of this insidious poison,_ Versheh lay unmoving, his eyes glassed over and bile covering his nose and mouth. He had passed, drowning in his own sickness.

 _We will make it home,_ Markus silently promised himself, wanting with the desperation of the drowning to keep this, his last, promise. Their fifth man, Jendro, had disappeared in the night, and Markus wished him luck, hoping that anyone would survive this hell.

His men blearily blinked their eyes, wiping futily at the mucus, blood and loose hair covering their faces. Yet each gripped their weapon, each wore their heavy armor and each stood despite empty stomachs, dry mouths and feeble bodies. They were the Empire's finest in this moment, no matter their birth nor rank.

Nodding to himself, Markus steeled his nerves and opened their sheds thin door, allowing the cloying air and dust back into the hovel.

Gravel crunched.

Markus hastily leapt out, his second wind returning as adrenaline coursed through his veins, ready to fight, to flee, to do anything. His men, seeing the alacrity of their leader, instantly went on alert, following Markus quickly out the door, naked swords gleaming.

What they saw terrified them anew. This hell contained twisted men, from the green giants and their unrelenting brutality to starved undead, consumed by madness, and _this_. A mockery of man stood in front of them, and yellow clockwork eyes gazing at them, analyzing their state. Half of its face was torn off, exposing gleaming metal and the skin sloughed down its face in places, leaving it with a light scowl as it surveyed them.

The construct beckoned to them, mimicking body language perfectly. It spoke, but neither Markus nor his men understood the foul language emanating from the machine's lips.

 **~T-45d~**

"Well hello there," Valentine drawled, "nice day to be taking over the Commonwealth isn't it?" The leader's face tightened imperceptibly, but his men looked at one another in confusion. "You understand what I'm saying here, right?" the detective pressed, but was only met with some muttering in a language that didn't sound very familiar.

"Hello?" Nick called, "do you understand English?" He guessed not, and switched to what he remembered from his school days, two hundred years past. "Habla Español?" No reaction. "Err, parlez vous Francais?" Still nothing, what the hell was Caesar teaching these morons?

Maybe they weren't from the Legion though, all of them looked to be suffering from acute radiation exposure, their faces covered in dried blood and skin that was peeling away in small patches, exposing glistening muscle beneath. Caesars men would certainly be able to avoid over-irradiating themselves, if only because they had spent their entire lives in the ruins of America. That lent credence to his hope that this was all some prank gone wrong.

"All right, well, obviously we need to do something about that radiation sickness first of all, or you lot don't look like you will make it through the night." At this point, Valentine might as well have been talking to himself, but intent on helping, he took a step forward.

The legionaries all took a step back. Well, except the leader, he looked to have some steel in his eyes. An angry gaze fixated on the detective, but the Leader made no motion with his sword. Valentine locked eyes with him, challenging his gaze while making calming motions with one hand, as he slowly reached into his duster and withdrew the pack of rad away he always kept. You never knew when some poor settler would need treatment while you were investigating; can't have the witness die before they give testimony after all.

An idea formed in Nicks mind, and he also slowly pulled out his magnum, carefully laying the weapon on the ground before taking another step forward towards the Legionary. The leader relaxed a little, and instead of taking another step back, the soldiers quietly talked amongst themselves.

Nick carefully eased his weight forward once more, making sure to make no sudden movements. He wouldn't want to get beat to death by some lost tourists. What a way to finally kick the bucket. "Private Eye, professional investigator brutally murdered by scared tourists playing dress up". He could already see the way Piper would title it, and he chuckled quietly to himself. He always had appreciated her candor.

Another step forward and he uncapped the needle on the rad away, and made motions as if he were stabbing himself in the arm, hoping that the leader understood. With a slow nod, the leader focused on the gleaming needle and spoke in that foreign language to his men. When none of them met his eye, the Leader shook his head ruefully and took a step to meet Valentine.

"All right now," the detective continued, in what he hoped was a soothing tone, "you are going to feel a slight prick, and your arm might become a little uncomfortable." He reached forward and secured the Leaders arm, holding it still as he gently pressed the needle into the veins inside the elbow. A slight hiss escaped the Leaders lips, and his friends looked murderous at the noise, but Valentine ignored them, continuing to speak. Squeezing the liquid from the IV bag with one hand, Valentine drawled calmly, "There, you're doing good. Truth be told I'm not used to actually administering drugs, that's more Hancock's specialty, but I'm more than good enough to get you back to Diamond City for a real doctor."

Giving the bag one last squeeze, Nick withdrew the needle and recapped the now mostly empty IV bag. He could probably sell it back in town; the scrap would probably fetch a couple extra caps.

The Leader swung his arm around a few times, slowly flexing it. Valentine could remember, from back when he was a lawyer, how uncomfortable the sensation was. Yet the mans fogged up eyes grew a little clearer as the radiation poisoning was countered. Some energy seemed to return to his face and with a huge smile, he embraced the synth.

Valentine felt acutely awkward, but he would never mention it as he comforted the crying man.

He grinned at the three shocked men beyond, who all had symptoms as bad or worse than their leader's, "Now I just have to get all you back to Diamond City alive, so we figure out what the hell is going on."

 **Approximately one month later**

 **Alnus Hill, Allied Armies**

The ruins of the field stank of acrid smoke and dead bodies. That was the first thing that Duran realized when he came too, and he knew the memory would stay with him forever. He was a veteran of many wars, but no battle, no skirmish had ever been so brutal as this one. The very land was scarred and flayed, and its desiccated remains stank of filth and death.

His head hurt abominably, and he let out a groan, reaching up to free his helmet from his head. With a crisp snap, the leather unclasped and the metal helm fell away. Duran took a shuddering breath, glad that he could still breath, only to end up coughing on foul smoke. He was ecstatic despite the pain, he was alive when so many weren't, the King of Alguna, the King of Mudwan, Duke Ligu, thousands, no, tens of thousands of soldiers, horses and mercenaries.

Their loss, especially that of his close friend the Duke of Ligu, tore at his soul, but for the moment, waking up to be alive another day was a joy that so many were now denied. Wobbling a little, the King of Elbe made to stand, to be useful; finding survivors and linking up with the remains of the army was the top priority now. But he couldn't push himself up, his body felt so weak.

Blearily, his eyes gauged the position of the sun, and he decided it was sometime around noon, but he couldn't be sure; all he knew was that the migraine was terrible, and that the daylight too bright for his eyes. He peered as much as he could around his body, hoping to find some reason for his current weakness. Looking down told him enough however, to be glad that he couldn't feel anything through migraine; bone and flesh were jutting from the ruins of hi leg, and while the blood seemed to have long clotted, it would be a fools mission to walk.

Unable to move, the King gazed around him, hoping to see another breathing body. The battle was a terrible affair and he silently decided that he would never fight for the Emperor again. Not after this.

When the Army of the Allied Kingdoms had first taken to the field, they had expected an easy victory. What could some thousands of men do against the hundred thousand that the Allied Kingdoms had brought, or the two hundred thousand more from the Empire? But the Empire's soldiers had never shown their cowardly faces and Molts treachery would never go answered because with this battle, the Kingdoms were never going to be a threat to his reign.

Gritting his teeth, Duran recalled the images of that dawn attack, of how eager the Kings of Alguna and Mudwan were to lead the charge into glorious battle. And how wrong they were. What could one man do, what could a battalion of men do, as monstrous hounds nearly the size of horses tore out their innards? What could the armies do when they were annihilated by taunting enemies further than the bow could shoot?

Their first attempt at an offensive left the Duke of Ligu dead, his helm and half eaten body was all they had ever found of him. The Kings of Alguna and Mudwan also never turned up during the cursory searching of the battlefield.

When Duran, the Lion of the Elbe Clan, sortied out the remaining armies under his own banner, the battle had only gone worse. The midday attack combined with incredible, eye searing explosions and the maddening rattle of those metal wands gave the green men every advantage, and that was when the bloodbath began. Massive men, monsters of green, and larger than even those titanic hounds, appeared from seemingly nowhere. They were leaping off the nearby cliffs, emerging from the tall grass and somehow maneuvering behind the armies, and with a feral roar, their smaller army slammed into Durans with lethal intent, leading to a desperate melee.

The weapons of the green men may have been crude, but they made up for it in terrifying determination. None could be easily killed; even stabbing their hearts wouldn't stop them. _As the battle progressed, the King had been knocked from his horse, the charger run completely through by a rusty old pipe of all things. A grinning giant leered over the downed King as he struggled to free his sword and defend himself. His banner leapt to the Kings defense, steel flashing, and the beast merely roared as its eye was gouged with almost six inches of metal. It reached out two massive hands and grasped the banner man briefly before ripping the poor man in half, and then threw those halves, still connected by a string of glistening intestine, to bowl over a nearby soldier, who was promptly stomped to death by another giant._

 _The green monster turned back to the King, a mad grin covering its ruined, laughing face. "Scream - Scream for your worthless life!" the being cackled, though Duran knew not the meaning. But he did scream, loud and filled with desperation as he rammed his sword through where the things heart was supposed to be, and it only grinned wider as blood pooled from its mouth. Gargling now as it madly closed its arms around the King, Duran could not free his sword: it was stuck inside the monster._

 _Grabbing ahold of the banner man's dirk, he threw all of his weight and armor behind a final stab, tilting both of them over to the ground. With a roar to match any others on the field, he drove the dirk the final two inches through the demons skull, and it finally gave in to death._

 _It was in that moment of elation, even as the furnace roared around him, that he noticed crazed cackling from nearby. His eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he saw another green man slam a metallic sphere into the ground behind a ring of his soldiers; and the blinding light of a newborn star was the last thing he could remember._

"Milord," a nearby whisper startled him from his recollection, "Milord, thank the gods you are alive." Turning his head, Duran could make out the forms of some soldiers, but the glare of sun was still too strong for his eyes.

He nodded his head, unable to speak through his dry throat. "Shush milord, we need to bring you to the medics quickly." Suddenly Duran felt iron clad hands grasping his shoulders as another soldier maneuvered around him to carry his waist. He tried to nod his thanks but the speaker restrained him, "don't move to much my lord, we need to get you off the field quickly, those green men are searching for something."

Another whisper cut in harshly, "I doubt they're searching for anything, you saw them feeding our comrades to those monster hounds."

"You're wrong Josef," a third voice countered, still in that breathless whisper, "the brutes are looking for prisoners. You saw them dragging away the wounded, and keeping their mongrels from attacking them." The arms carrying Duran's waist trembled a little, "I wouldn't want to be a prisoner of those things."

"Shut up you two," the leader whispered, "you understand why we have to leave quickly my lord?" Not even waiting for an answer, the three soldiers hefted the armored man up. Duran had to bite back a scream as his shattered leg shifted. "I'm sorry milord, but it's better that you return soon, with so many dead now."

Grimly, the King nodded, he understood the importance of making sure as many troops knew he lived as possible, while it wouldn't completely heal the shattered moral of his troops, having an authority survive would certainly help it heal.

No doubt that much of the demoralized remains of the Allied Kingdoms armies had already left, hoping to find pillage and loot in some other place. No more than scum, marauders and bandits now, that was what they would choose. But Duran wouldn't damn them, no matter what they did. There was only so much the soul could take before it shattered and watching his men, his friends get eaten alive in that battle would test the mettle of any.

 **North West of Alnus Hill**

Lelei La Lelena quietly walked the perimeter of her teacher's house. The night was old, and whispers of dawn had just begun to break the horizon. No one in the village was up yet, yet Lelei was awake, and her Master too. Dreams had been plaguing them both recently, and neither could get a full night of sleep. The old pervert had even begun to sober up, actually passing on some of his older experiments on to her.

 _Fire raining from the sky,_ her mind's eye had shown her, _the oppression of an unstoppable doom pressing down, flattening everything in its path. Rage and terror and cruelty and blood._ What could have been causing such evil dreams?

Her Master, Kato, was sitting quietly in his rocking chair, facing the hearth as he nursed a cup of that sweet tea he was so fond of. She could sense the fire and the warmth of the water through her magical connection, but she didn't need that to know he was brooding. The dreams had been especially clear to him, as in his age, he could recall similar ones from his youth.

"An ancient evil is awakened before its time Lelei," he had said to her seriously, the normal tone of humor missing from his sleep starved voice, "I remember when something similar happened almost sixty summers ago. I was having dreams similar to these ones that plague us now, of blood and ice, and the cold, unrelenting brutality of the blizzard."

He had sat back then, silently chewing on the end of his pipe, a nervous habit. Lelei had left shortly afterwards, as her master seemed to be reviewing those memories. Attempting to comfort or get more information would only hinder his thoughts right now.

And so, Lelei La Lelena found herself quietly checking the wooden posts for rot. Silently meditating at the ponds edge, passing the time until dawn and perhaps an answer arrived. _Sixty summers ago, a den of frost wyverns had awoken, the god Hardy had been angered by the Empires refusal to cease its expansion._

 _For days, a blizzard served as the harbinger for the poisons to come. Crops withered and starved, frozen inside and out as the people were barricaded into their homes by the weight of snow that reached as far south as the Capitol._ At least, that was what her history tomes spoke of. But then, when they described how the Emperor single handedly vanquished Hardy's tools, Lelei found herself wondering, not for the first time, just how biased some of the tomes were. She could get the true answer from her teacher, but she would have to wait.

A ward twinged at the edge of her senses. Someone had joined her and Kato, someone fleeing from something. Lelei could feel the raw panic emanating off of the figure in waves, it was scaring the little creatures, inciting them to panic as well. Lelei looked up from her cursory inspection, and lightly gripped her staff; she would probably need to put this person to sleep. They were scared, they were confused and so they would probably react irrationally, something that Lelei may have detested, but could deal with. She freely acknowledged her emotions, but never would she let them control her.

Yet, something didn't feel right about this, the air felt heavier, as if someone with the Talent were giving into their emotions. The lesser creatures were more jumpy, more angry, more panicked than if the fleeing person didn't have a connection to nature. The tree's themselves seemed to twist menacingly towards Lelei, but she simply banished that illusion. No rogue magic was going to influence her thoughts.

 _There._ The intruder emerged from the woods, her clothes tattered and frayed from a long run through the forest. Leleis blue eyes scanned the rapidly approaching elf, and it _was_ an elf. No one else could move with that fluid grace, not when they were panicking.

Lelei quickly aligned her spell, and sent the elf a powerful sleep suggestion. The elf, now merely a small distance away, searched franticly for the source of the magic, her wide eyes betraying an emptiness inside her spirit. She was beyond exhausted, and that helped Lelei's magic overcome her natural resistances. Slowly those wide, mad eyes aligned on Lelei, and sluggishly, the elf reached out two delicate arms.

With a final closing of her eyes, the elf went truly to sleep and fell forward. Extending one hand, Lelei caught the falling elf in a magical grip and pondered briefly about the significance of her appearance. Perhaps the focus of Lelei's premonitions was closer that she thought.

Snapping her fingers, Lelei roused herself from her thoughts. First, the elf, making sure that she knew she was safe when she woke, and then figuring out why she had fled. Lelei nodded to herself, this was a plan and she could work with that. Trailing the mage by a meter, the elf drifted towards the house of Master Kato, helm firm in the grip of magic, and rooted to a restoring sleep.

 _A/N:_

 _Morning, welcome to my little fanfic about Gate and Fallout 4._ _Its going to continue for a few more chapters at least, and I'll make sure to tack on an actual conclusion if I decide to finish, but no promises about its quality._

 _Now you may notice that this is my first story published on fanficnet, and there is a reason for that. Until recently I had labored under the false conclusion that fanfiction was all crap. Well, when I ran out of stories to read and got a little drunk, I decided, "fuck it, lets find something to satisfy this boredom." And now here I am, many stories richer and greatly entertained by this wonderful hub of writers._

 _Now that we have got all that touchy-feely crap out of the way, I want to pose a question to those of you still reading: Should the Sole Survivor be OC or should I make them Itami? There are good reasons to go either way; I can make a super baddass with OC, but with Itami, I already have a minor baddass and very comedic template. With an OC I could avoid screwing up with how he/she thinks because no one would know how they would think previous to me making them, and with Itami, I would have to try and mimic his character as close as possible. There is already support in the Fallout 4 setup for an Itami-like character to succeed anyways, plus I could just make him a Grognak fan instead of doujinshi, or something like that. My point is, it can go either way and I want to hear what you guys might like._

 _My vote: Itami +1_

 _The break point for this is fairly obvious to those of you who have read or watched Gate, except I decided to be a little more devious. Instead of the Gate opening just anywhere and everyone instantly knowing about it, I decided that it would open deep in Super Mutant Territory and the main factions (railroad, BoS, Minutemen and Institute: yes the Sole Survivor hasn't picked anyone yet (Itami being lazy...?)) take some time to learn where all these new breeds of super mutant are coming from. Some stealth missions make it across the Gate, assaults make it and fail just short, but the big thing is, the Factions refuse to work together, at least initially, which means that mutant population is growing quickly as they convert the land beyond the Gate and the Gates populations are becoming desperate to stop these demons._

 _Now, I will use those pressures to stick as closely to the original storyline as I can, but I will have to make excuses to fill in some plot holes, for example, Touka running from her village instead of being pushed into a well. I hope to keep the changes minor and controlled, but this is fanfiction! Anything could happen._

 _Have a good day and feel free to post your thoughts, any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated._


	2. Chapter 2

**The Railroad, Underground Base, Downtown Boston**

"Des," Deacon whispered, poking his leader's shoulder, "Des wake up." the red headed leader of the Railroad groaned as she rolled over, blearily blinking her eyes.

"Deacon, you know what time it is right? This had better be important."

Deacon smirked, "Of course it important Des, everyone is waiting for you about the new synth."

Desdemona's eyes widened in alarm, "A new synth! When the hell did I give a go on that project?" Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, "damn it Deacon, stop pulling my leg."

He smiled genially, "got it in one Des," and his smile faded to a frown, "but I've got some info that you need _now._ " the leader of the Railroad frowned thoughtfully; she knew that tone from Deacon. It was usually accompanied by words like _compromised, destroyed,_ or _dead._

If her best agent thought something was wrong, she had to know immediately what it was. She quickly rolled out of the covers on her sleeping bag and stood, walking out of the room with Deacon. She slept fully clothed, everyone in the railroad did, you never knew when a Courser might find you, nor how long you had until a synth strike team came in through the roof.

"Ok Deacon, what went wrong," she was looking at the drawing board, trying to figure out which safe house must have been compromised and how to mitigate the damage.

"Actually Des, nothing really went wrong, you could say," Deacon looked sheepish, an unusual look to the normal braggart.

She narrowed her eyes, "alright, I'll bite, what's so important?"

Deacon grinned mischievously behind his sunglasses, "what if I could tell you about a land that is so far away that no one has heard of the terms 'synth,' or, 'the Institute?' What if I said it was so close, that it only took me a day to get there?"

Desdemona frowned, while she didn't believe in such a spot and she wasn't an optimist, Deacon wouldn't lie about this. At least, he hadn't done that before, _yet_. "I would say that you were pulling my leg, but also that you might have found something important."

Deacon's grin only grew wider, "oh this is important Des, but regardless of how I phrase it, you aren't going to believe me."

"Well then how do I know that this place exists? Just because you said the 'magic words' that you admit that you pull fantasies out of thin air doesn't absolve you of the fact that you make stuff up all the time." Desdemona smirked back at the offended looking Deacon, waiting for his retort.

But he didn't give one, instead pulling out an institute recorder, part of the technology that the Sole Survivor had given them after he had gotten into the Institute. Fiddling with the switch, Deacon managed to get the thing to project onto the wall.

A soft blue light emanated from the recorder, and illuminated a marble Parthenon, restored to its ancient glory. Deacons voice softly whispered out of the recorder, "This place seems to be a piece of old world tech, or even alien. Hell, I don't know, it could be magic. The point is, when you go through here, you emerge on another planet. The constellations aren't even the same."

Desdemona scowled at Deacon, who stood off to her left, arms folded with a slight frown on his face. He didn't even acknowledge her turning to him, "you really expect me to believe that? Only the Institute has ever developed teleporting technology, and it could not get someone to another world."

Deacon shook his head and pointed at the projection, where the Parthenon was growing closer, "So, I've been through this before, but not with any electronics on. Let's hope you survive through," Deacons voice to the recorder. The looming structure enveloped the recorder, and darkness swallowed the device. "Yeah," Deacons voice came through, "it's really dark in here, but if we walk about twenty minutes along the walls, we reach the end of the tunnel on. I'm going to turn off the recorder to save battery."

The screen dimmed, and Desdemona resumed scowling at Deacon, "What the hell are you up too; you realize there are escaped Synths who need the time that you take sightseeing, right?"

Deacon merely smirked back, "Just trust me Des, this is going to be worthwhile." The recorder resumed, and a light appeared in the center of the image.

"Ok, so, this was hard to believe my first time around, and it's going to be even harder for you guys listening," Deacons voice continued, "but that light is a wholly different planet. No nuclear war, almost no background radiation to speak of, at least, compared to the Wasteland." The light enveloped the lens, and a magnificent view appeared.

Green, as far as the eye could see on gentle rolling hills. Mountain peaks defined the shallow valley and encircled the view. A brook, filled with clear water, but most startling was the sky. In the Wasteland that used to be North America, the sun was almost always partially obscured by the clouds of radioactive dust that still hadn't settled down or blew out from the glowing sea. The sun of this new place shined down clearly, unobstructed, and illuminated a clear blue sky. Such a clean, clear cerulean that hadn't graced the Earth since the day of war that had ruined their planet.

"So that's a really shocking view for anyone from the Wasteland," Deacons narrative continued, "but here is something that we would be a lot more familiar with, huh?" The camera panned out, and down the hill lay the remains of a large battle. Craters pockmarked the ruined ground and the remains of an army lay unhallowed and abandoned.

"Yeah," Deacon stated, "it looks like the Super Muties have been through before me. Hell, just getting to the Gate is hard, it's in the middle of Mutant territory and they have it guarded by at least three forts." Deacon once more turned the recorder to the sky, "alright, I'm going to turn you off and head back to the wasteland, the Railroad needs my report."

Desdemona was speechless as the recorder wound down, and Deacon merely stood patiently waiting for his boss to say something. Finally, she found her words, "that's real?"

Deacon nodded, "as real as real gets Des," he spoke softly.

Desdemona spent a few more seconds organizing her thoughts, _the mission, focus on the mission._ "It's inhabited?" Deacon nodded, but the question was mostly rhetorical. "What do you know about them? I'm sure you at least went through the remains." Deacon had always been the best agent, and that was in large part due to his curiosity, he always needed to find more information, mission critical or not.

Deacon took a breath, "they are not an advanced society, I went to a few of their surviving settlements and posed as a farmhand for some info. I would say that they average about twelfth century, in terms of technology." Deacon groaned seeing his boss's blank face, "Oh come on, Des! Haven't you read a history textbook before?"

She grinned a little ruefully, "I'm sure you haven't looked outside lately Deacon, but the whole, 'nuclear war' thing doesn't lend well to going to the library."

Deacon stared at her a little, but it was hard to tell if he was glaring or not, the sunglasses prevented anyone from seeing his eyes. "Anyways," he continued," that means that they are so far behind us in terms of technology, that they won't know what synths are, nor be able to identify them."

"So, I think what you are trying to suggest Deacon," is that we start channeling all of our escapees to one location, in the hopes that the natives won't pick up on a bunch of strangers showing up from a magic hill? Or that the Institute doesn't figure that out either?"

"If we went one at a time, or even posed as groups of settlers, we could get in without the Institute figuring anything out. And we could just set up villages ourselves, integrating into the native society would be hard until we can build a dictionary. They don't speak English," Deacon pointed out, "we could do it, except for one, tiny problem."

Desdemona raised an eyebrow, "would that be the Super Mutants?"

Deacon nodded, "yeah, we don't have the kind of resources to clear them out either; they really want that Gate to stay theirs."

Desdemona grinned a little, "I happen to know someone who does have the resources to do so, but it's going to take a little trickery to get him into actually clearing those Super Mutants without letting his faction know what's on the other side." Desdemona smirked back at Deacon, "I'm going to need you to write up a report for me and P.A.M."

Before Deacon could start whining about, _god forbid_ , work, Des decided to outline her plan. "What we are going to do is doctor a version of your report and have you take the place of a brotherhood scribe. Then after you hand the report to Quinlan, we can sit back and wait while vertibirds clear out the ruins."

Deacon grinned, now _that_ was his kind of plan, full of misdirection and sneaking. "I'll get right on it Des," he sang, and Des shook her head in amusement while trying to remind herself that he only _played_ the role of lovable idiot _._

 ** _North of Alnus Hill_**

The last bandit fell begging, terrified for his life. It was _pathetic._ These were men who boasted that they were trained killers, hardened by war and deadly capable. None of their group had managed to entertain her for even a second. This last one's blubbering cries and pleases almost annoyed her. _What filth._

Still, every century or so, some event or upheaval would occur and she would get to fight a decent fight. In fact, the century since her last good fight was almost up, which was why she was wandering these lands in the first place. Great warriors generally didn't show up when she was watching, it made all the trainees too scared.

She sighed, musing, as the bandit climbed to his knees, hands clasped as snot ran down his nose, "please your holiness," she tuned the creature out, something about family. She had heard all this before and it never changed. _Honestly, how hard is it to come up with something more creative than 'I'm just a poor farm boy.'_ As if a poor farm boy would be out here raping and pillaging as marauders were wont. Well, he was certainly a _morally_ poor farm boy now.

Calmly, she ran her tongue over the blood spatter on her hand, cleaning it as a predator might. The coppery taste, regardless of how unworthy its donator may have been, never failed to excite her. Seeing this, the cretin at her feet sobbed all the harder, head pressed against the rocky ground as he stammered out excuses and apologies. As if she _cared_ about apologies. He could apologize all he wanted in the next life.

Tapping her chin, her smirk turned to a light frown as she sensed a wave of violent intent coming from above her. Faintly, she had to strain her ears to hear over the filth now clasping at her ankles, she could make out the roar of a dragon. Smiling again, she came to a decision.

One swing of her halberd later, she was pursuing the heavy beat of dragon wings. This might just be a _good_ fight. If a dragon found something to prey upon, especially if it were some innocent village, The Reaper's boring evening might turn into a dead dragon, and those always looked _excellent_ on ones résumé.

The wind whipped through her hair, painting a long black trail behind her as she sprinted after the beast, each bounding step covering far more ground than even an elves'. With a heavy thud that Rory could feel even this far away, her prey must have landed. And it had to be an _old_ dragon. Very few ever got this large. Her grin only grew wider in anticipation.

Dull red scales showed out of the darkness and a looming, angry yellow eye stared down at a small caravan. With a feral scream, the creature unleashed a torrent of flame that incinerated several wagons. The Reapers feet faltered as she felt those lost souls slip through her, on their way to the embrace of Emroy.

Regaining her speed, the Reaper was still too far away to make a difference. One of the wagons though was suddenly, magically, fast, whipped around into the dragons blind spot before unleashing a short barrage of silver light. _Mages,_ she thought to herself, and not just average ones either. The dragon had fully turned towards their wagon and away from the rest of the caravan, testament to how much it felt threatened. That lumbering turn alone bought the Reaper all the precious seconds she needed to wind up her arm and _heave_ her halberd into the fray.

Like a purple lightning bolt, her weapon shot out, faster than the eye could track before it struck the ground with a resounding crash. _Lightning before the thunder,_ the short Reaper snorted in amusement, _devastation before the storm._ Arriving with the explosion of force, her halberd sundered the ground at the dragon's feet, unleashing a devastating cataclysm of energy that concussed the air.

If anything, her smile only grew wider, taking on a feral gleam of its own as bubbles of overpressure pressed down on her blurring form.

The mage's cart survived the destruction if only by the simple reason that it was floating in the air, immune to the shattered ground and quaking earth. The multi-ton dragon that was standing on the soil that suddenly exploded with force? It didn't have such protections.

With a roar to match any thunder, the dragon tipped over, unbalanced. It fell awkwardly, and with a mighty crunch it screamed in pain. She could see where the bones in the beasts arm were ruined, as it vainly tried to support itself. The Reaper licked her lips as she shivered in pleasure. The pain, the _shame_ , that emanated from the dragon as its lessers' stripped it of its superiority - that was a rare treat indeed.

She was still too far away, she realized as the dragon climbed back to its feet, its intent only to escape. She sighed in displeasure as it took to the air, great muscles flexing underneath its ember hide as it leapt into the sky, favoring its forelimb. She would probably never have another opportunity to kill it again. It would be wary of people for centuries now.

There was nothing better to do now that the dragon had fled. The Reaper went to reclaim her weapon, stuck firmly into the soil. With a single fluid heave, she wrested the massive halberd from the earth and looked over towards the caravan, which was only now realizing it was no longer under threat.

It was like watching a glacier move as elders and parents looked at her, then at the shattered ground around her, and then at the fleeing form of the dragon. Then they would look at her again one more time, before ducking into their wagon, whereupon their spouse would do the whole thing over again. With one exception, the Mages cart had drifted over to her, and she was greeted by the sight of a dark bearded short man grinning jovially at her. She grinned back, she had dealt with these kinds of people before; smiling was the key.

Yet, next to the old man sat a blue haired witch, _an apprentice,_ she thought, who seemed to frown softly at her. Whether it was in disapproval or shock, the Reaper couldn't say. Tentatively, the witch raised her hand and gave a soft wave, and the Reaper nodded her head, a smaller grin, but perhaps more genuine, directed towards the apprentice.

A soft tug on her dress caught her attention, and she looked down to find the first of the children beaming up at her, the pump creatures mouth moving without sound. Rory frowned a little in her mind, but kept the smile on her face as she gently patted the child on the head. Nearby, adults were beginning to make their way over to kneel. It was annoying, perhaps, but she was used to it. At least this time she had actually done something worth being thanked for.

Still, it bothered her that she could not hear anything, not the wind, nor the children nor the soft prayers of the adults. The apprentice had approached her, as the adults bowed and the blue haired witch kept a neutral mask while gesturing towards her own ears. _Ears, ears, what is she trying to tell me?_ The Reaper floundered, until realization snapped.

Quite literally, there was a solid snapping sound that happened when her eardrums finished repairing themselves and moved back into position. She grinned once more, and spoke, "it's too bad the dragon ran."

While the children all readily agreed with her, the apprentice frowned, just a small one, before responding, "It was probably best that it left."

The Reaper giggled a little, it had been _so_ long since someone had actually disagreed with her, much less argued. _I think I'm going to stay with them for a little while longer._ Besides, if their luck had attracted a fully grown fire dragon in the middle of the night, Rory the Reaper was bound to find some fun.

A/N

 _Thanks for all the awesome suggestions guys, you've made it overwhelmingly clear that you believe an OC would fit better, and we are getting to the point where one might show up. Shouldn't be for a little while longer though, our OC isn't going to be terribly pivotal. Remember in Gate? Itami never really drove the plot, the story was built around his companions, instead of around him. I plan to do something similar.  
_

 _Thanks for reading guys, have a wonderful week and I will chat again next time. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, go ahead and ask, although I cannot promise to answer, I'm still figuring out the system in my_ copious _amounts of free time._


	3. Chapter 3

_I claim nothing._

 _Quick recap: Deacon has been to the other side of Alnus and convinced Desdemona that they should get the Brotherhood to clear out the Mutants that are fortifying the Boston side of the Gate._

 _Sorry its been a while, but, here is the next part:_

 ** _The Airship Prydwen, East of Downtown Boston_**

"I just cannot believe that he thinks I'm this stupid," Proctor Quinlan complained over his morning tea to his CO, "I'm the Science Officer for crying out loud!" The man was beside himself, his face pressed against the surface of the conference table on the Prydwen, where he and Maxson were beginning their day.

"There, there Proctor," Maxson attempted to console his intelligence officer, "I'm sure that the Railroad knows that we know."

"But that's just it!" Quinlan cried and he thrust his face upwards, "he has this little smirk every time I dismiss him, just saunters away like nobody recognized him. It's not that hard to recognize one person, especially when he is always wearing those damned sunglasses!"

"I'll leave my offer to you on the table Proctor," Maxson was quickly tiring of his officers outburst, "next time he shows up, we'll just have several knights detain him."

The Proctor visibly began to calm down, and after several deep breaths, replied, "No, no, it's probably best that he thinks he is fooling us. He is the only way we have of contacting the Railroad directly, and, whatever his intentions, he gives us too many advantages against the Institute to justify throwing him off the ship. As much as I would like to see how well he flies," Quinlan grumbled.

"Speaking of advantages, the report you say he handed you," Maxson had only looked over it briefly, and wanted to know what his Intelligence Officer had made of it.

"Yes," the Proctor took a deep sip from his tea, and straightened his back, becoming professional once more. "To start off with, the actual report simply says that south Boston is crawling with far more Mutants than normal," Both he and Maxson grimaced. Super Mutants were the most ravaging and dangerous things in the shattered remains of America, and Maxson had already spent his whole life fighting them, first in the Capitol Wasteland, under Elder Lyons, and then from Lyons' own seat, directing the almost unwinnable battle until the mutant population and spawning chambers were nearly totally eradicated.

"Then," the Proctor continued, "his report goes on to say that he went solo into the ruins to search for the source of the mutants, where he found a very complex piece of Old War tech. Having no clue what it was, he returned to his position and wrote this report." Teagan smiled with a few to many teeth, "it's a good thing that he isn't actually part of the Brotherhood, or I would have chewed him out for breaking so many safety protocols."

Maxson nodded in silent agreement, scouting was incredibly dangerous in the Commonwealth, even if the place was relatively tame compared to the rest of the continent, and going alone to scout could actually result in a loss of station, except under special circumstances, most of which only applied to the Sole Survivor. "What are your thoughts Proctor?"

"Well, we can safely assume that there is a real threat of something, whether it's Mutants or not, in southern Boston, since it would be counterproductive to tell us there is a valuable artifact there and expect us not to go after it. This leaves a couple possibilities," Teagan paused to take another sip of tea. "The first possibility is that there is some War tech there, guarded by the mutants and the Railroad is 'paying' us for clearing out the threats with the tech. After the streets are clear, they begin using that portion of Boston to ship escaped Synths." Maxson curled his lip in distaste.

Quinlan continued, oblivious, "another possibility is that it's a trap, but then, they wouldn't tell us that there was a threat unless they know that we know their informant, and then they were trying to outthink us."

"A third scenario I can think of would be that they want us to pull a majority of forces there, so that we become overextended, and hit us somewhere else."

Maxson shook his head, "we have little that would interest the Railroad, and unless they are puppets of the Institute, I don't see anyone gaining something from that scenario."

Quinlan nodded, thoughtful, "so we can assume it's one of the first two scenarios?" Maxson nodded slowly, thinking as well.

"Our first step is to scout it with a loyal team, preferably from vertibird since we only need confirmation." Maxson called over the ship com next to him, "Captain Kells, are you there?"

A voice, somewhat distorted by the electronics, answered, "Aye Elder, good morning."

Maxson smirked at the familiar tone from his captain, "prepare a vertibird for a scouting sortie, and wake Team 3 for the job, I'll brief them in half an hour. You got that Kells?"

"Yes sir, I shall have the vertibird prepped immediately, and have Team 3 woken."

"Very good captain, enjoy your morning." Maxson cut the connection.

* * *

 **Alnus Hill**

Trayk blinked, his eyes seemed to be out of focus. There was light, some kind of orange-yellow glow off to his left, and a darkness around him. _Camp?_ His thoughts struggled to supply him, _campfire._ He turned his head slightly towards the fire, feeling something flake from his skin at the movement. The brightness of the fire was almost blinding, and he felt, in a detached way, a rivulet of water run down his cheek from his abused eyes.

There were some blurs sitting at the fire, moving and joking with one another, but what was said, he could not tell. There was an ever-present ringing in his ears, and he found he could not focus for long before his gaze drifted once again.

Relaxing his nexk, Trayk closed his eyes to keep from getting dizzy, and buried his face in his hands. His face was covered in a layer of crust, and eyes still closed, he gently began to peel the sensationless mass off. Flakes of blackness accompanied by dirt came off easily, and while he couldn't get all of it, or even most of the stuff, Trayk was already feeling better.

Deciding to brave the nausea, he opened his eyes again, looking over himself. His shirt was ruined, it clung to his body and was far darker than any tan cloth had right to be. _Blood,_ he realized, yet there was no shock, nor inflow of memories as to _why_ he was covered in the stuff. _I must have been in battle,_ this was a reasonable conclusion; he was after all, a soldier of the Empire.

Yet, he could not remember a battle.

Sudden parch took his attention from such musings, and he searched for a flask or barrel, yet, his eyes still refused to focus on anything. The men sitting at the fire wore green armor, but his ears remained deaf and his eyes could not make out more. His hands and feet were unbound, so he couldn't be a prisoner, yet why would there be no medico, why was he left in a pile of his comrades?

His musings were interrupted through a deep growl, something he felt reverberating in his chest. Looking away from the fire, a massive green war hound stood before his sitting form, its yellow, hate-filled eyes locked onto his. Not even daring to breath, the soldier stood still as terror clashed with the calm he had felt before. Clarity clicked as the fear consumed his senses, and the creature slammed into focus.

The monster glared down at him with contemptuous eyes, and Trayk could feel its hatred for him as clearly as warmth of the sun on a summer day. The mongrel walked forward, covered in cancerous, bulbous growths and sampled the air – reading the soldier's fear. It opened its cavernous, sloppy maw in a mockery of a laugh, and allowed rancid, fetid air to bathe Trayk. Quivering, the soldiers eyes teared over, and precious water leaked down his cheeks.

Casually, the beast leaned over, and never breaking eye contact, opened its mouth. _No, no,_ he kept repeating his mind, and eventually, the words whispered out of his mouth, "no, please no," but the monster paid no heed, settling its open maw over Trayk's right foot.

It glanced at the quivering soldier before it one last time, savoring the fear that the corrupted hound commanded, before it tore off a chunk of Trayk's foot and gobbled up its snack, before trotting away.

Trayk's screams drew no attention from the other Super Mutants.

* * *

 **The Prydwen**

"Sir," Proctor Quinlan spoke to Maxson, "Team 3 has returned and I've reviewed their reports."

Standing in his command center, the Elder grunted as his eyes roamed the defenses of the air force base once more. The _Prydwen_ was a remarkable feat of post war engineering, a perpetually flying fortress, yet it was still necessary to have groundside fortifications for the rest of the Brotherhoods might. They truly were the one real power in the Commonwealth regardless of the Institutes staggering technological hoard. A hoard he was working so hard to claim as the Brotherhoods. "Have they confirmed an artifact Procter?"

"Yes Elder, there is indeed an object of interest that the Mutants are guarding very carefully." Quinlan's tone was respectful, but Maxson knew there was some underlying excitement despite the calm façade that Quinlan presented the rest of the world. The two had known each other far too long.

"Well? Tell me about it."

"First, while Team 3 was successful in their mission, I must report that if anything, the Railroad _understated_ the sheer Mutant density. I had thought we were slowly pushing them out of the Commonwealth, but there are multiple streets and buildings packed with thousands Mutants and defenses."

"That is concerning." Maxson stoically glared out of the window at the clouds and the green tinted sky. A radiation storm would be coming soon, sweeping out of the glowing sea and re-poisoning the land for a hundred miles. The weather would hinder his forces, blowing dust into cracks and irradiating even the most hermetically sealed power armor- yet it would aid the Super Mutants, regenerating their wounds and obscuring vision so that they could close to melee, where they were more than equal to the Brotherhoods knights.

"The artifact appears to be an undamaged marble building, reminiscent of the ancient Roman Pantheon."

"Undamaged, you say?" Seeing the reflection of the Proctor nod, Maxson continued, "How curious."

"The Team spent a few hours in the area, doing 3 overhead Vertibird runs and airdropping power armored scouts onto the roofs of some few buildings for more stable viewing. They all say the same thing in their individual reports, and it's very… queer." Maxson simply grunted.

The Proctor spent some time deciding how he was going to describe what those reports had stated. "The first thing to know, Elder Maxson, is that we know that teleportation is a proven technology."

Maxson nodded, it had been the Institutes tool to ravage the Commonwealth with synthetic humans for long time now. Teleport in a Courser or a strike team to secure a village, or run a few tests on the human chattel, or even silence someone, replacing them with a nearly perfect copy of the original for far more... nefarious reasons. Oh yes, the Institute had been using teleportation for quite some time.

"It appears that this structure is a teleportation device. But to where, we do not know." Maxson took a deep breath. This could mean quite a few things; it was an incredible boon if he could secure it. If the technology could be harnessed, he might finally have the tool he needed to strike the Institute directly, but what cost? It was guarded by an unprecedented quantity of Super Mutants, and he only knew about it because of the Railroad.

What was their angle, what could they possibly gain from the Brotherhood gaining access to a Teleporter of all things? Maxson voiced such thoughts.

Proctor Quinlan took a deep breath of his own before answering the Elder in his usual, calm way, "I spent a long time thinking about that after I read through the first report."

"And?"

"The Railroad does not work in the long term; its goals are always short term, with the vague idea that in the end, they will free all the synths." Once again, Maxson's sneer went unnoticed. "So I believe that this is another short term plan of theirs, they are not truly our enemy, and they know it. They have less to lose by giving us this technology and perhaps gain some of our goodwill to use later, or at least trust in further operations. But, their goal must be short term, which means that they may try to stage a synth breakout while we are distracted and unable to interfere."

"That sounds likely to me," Elder Maxson ground out. Even the thought of Synthetics these days made him incredibly angry; to have Paladin Danse, a man he knew personally, had worked with for _years!_ to be unmasked as a traitor and a spy? It was a deep betrayal that went against everything the Brotherhood held dear. Especially when the Survivor protected the lying pile of scrap and electronics.

"I agree that synth breakout seems most likely, if we were to shift our forces in enough number to clear out the infestation in southern Boston, it would send the Institute into high alert and distract their own forces. It may even result in a confrontation if the Institute becomes desperate to keep the teleporter out of our hands."

Maxson felt a small smile crawl across his lips, hidden beneath his beard. "It sounds like a perfect opportunity to crush the Institutes offensive capabilities for a time." The Proctor nodded, a downright evil grin on the scientists face.

"I recommend we 'game the system though,'" the Proctor looked thoughtful, "If we send the Sole Survivor into the artifact to recover or protect the teleporter, that would almost guarantee we recover it after the battle. Not to mention that it would free up several heavy infantry formations that we could bring in behind the Institutes forces."

Maxson curled his lip in distaste, he no longer trusted the man to shoot the Institutes abominations, but to use him against the Super Mutants? It was an excellent idea, and there was a good chance that the near traitor would die against those odds, and even if he didn't, the Brotherhood would secure the Teleporter.

"Yes," Maxson nodded his head decisively, "Ping the Survivor and let him know that a Vertibird will pick him up for an important mission." Quinlan nodded and left. Maxson reached for the intercom stud just as the Proctor disappeared into the bowels of the _Prydwen_ and hecalled the Captain, "Kells, conference room, all senior officers, ten minutes! We are about to change the Commonwealth."

* * *

 **The Gate**

Trayk's eyes no longer wept, they were hollow and sunken, and the deprivations of the past few days had taken their toll on his body. His foot -what was left of it- was a corrupt and festering wound, further draining his stamina. Yet he marched on, relentless as the undead of myth and legend. Yet he was, miraculously, still alive.

Not that he cared, Trayk was incapable of caring anymore. He barely registered as his surroundings crawled up Alnus hill, as the grass died beneath his feet. He and a hundred others were what few remained. When he had awoken there were more of them, but each night the creatures would return, laughing and taunting in their ugly, broken language, and dragging a few soldiers away to eat.

The skulls of those unfortunate soldiers hung in a macabre necklace around the largest monsters head, and it always eyed them, seeking to eat more to sustain its growth. Not that Trayk could care, he could not even feel fear anymore. But somehow he limped forward, dying as slowly as the sun sank to kiss the horizon.

The grass was long dead, hard stone was the only thing that greeted his footfall. But he didn't feel the pain as each step re-mangled his torn foot. After a few hours he had learned to hobble fast enough to appease the monsters, such that they ate of others, rather than him.

Or maybe it was luck. How would he die? Eaten? Starved? Rotted inside out?

He could no longer care.

The great large monster, the one which had eaten his fellow soldiers seized him suddenly. Trayk stared limply forward. This was how he would end, the midday snack of a Monster.

But he no longer cared. If the fever had not broken him, the horrors of the forced march most certainly did.

A maw did not suddenly engulf him. He did not experience one last fleeting sensation of pain as he was torn in half by rotted teeth. Instead, the creature carried him over to an indentation in the earth, where the stone had been dug into a rough pit. A nasty, greenish sludge awaited the former soldier, and a feeling squirmed its way back into the dying man's heart.

 _Fear_. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what was going to happen to him.

And with that feeling, came the Pain of malnourishment, of the hundreds of cuts and scabs that decorated his body. Pain from the tightness of the monsters grip, and his missing half foot.

The large green hand dropped Trayk into the pool of muck, and all his pains were washed away.

After all, those pains no longer mattered in the inferno of sensation that accompanied having his skin shredded away and reprogrammed, before being grafted back on. Trayk opened his mouth in a silent scream and the goo rushed in, devouring and _using_ him from the inside and out before finally, his body flayed and his organs digested the once human succumbed to darkness.

* * *

 _A/N_

 _Well, I'm alive again, no excuse as to why I was... not... previously._

 _Leave a review, let me know what you think of the current chapter! I really appreciate how much you guys are encouraging me to go OC, and I think I will break somewhat from the basic plot of GATE. Of course, Im sure you already realized that when Rory crippled a dragon on her own. Although, Apostles are supposed to be that powerful anyways, so I don't think it was too much of a stretch. (Good thing there were no muties around to 'save' the day eh?)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Just as an FYI, I've done some cleaning to the previous chapters, they still aren't perfect, but I imagine that they are a fair bit easier to read now. Thanks for sticking with me despite that!_

 **Sanctuary Hills, North of the Gate**

It was perhaps, an average day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the sunlight, bringing slight warmth, rained down through a dusty sky and illuminated the ruined husk of the once great city. Towers stood in the distance, downtown Boston a decayed and rusted collection of ruinous spires stabbing into the sky , a testament to the works of mankind and how far they had fallen.

Contrary to the quiet, languid view that the distance provided, Boston was still very much alive. Cancerous growths of mutants, raiders and feral ghouls patrolled the ruined streets and broken subways. The spires themselves giving sanctuary to all manner of fiendish and twisted remnants of a world once great. Man preyed upon man, and mutant upon both, for it was only the law of Power which governed who survived, and who was eaten in the twilight alleys.

Surrounding this broken downtown area lay the dust and radiation clogged suburbs, highways patrolled by ruthless mercenaries, broken military fortresses guarded by insane, once human _things_ , and some, very few, settlements of the last remaining people clinging to their humanity. Not all of them were sane, in fact very few of them would safely fall into that category, after all, the trauma of surviving in a landscape hell bent on the degradation of all their moral values for their entire lives had taken its toll on even the most stoic of individuals. But they were alive _, and they valued each other._ They had passed the gauntlet of childhood and had grown old enough to defend those they loved, though the word itself was somewhat… foreign. _Weak._ It could not capture the bonds of duty, struggle and perseverance that bound them. There was affection, but it was still a distant thing, the bonds of utility and pragmatism being far more important than such a trivial thing as whether they liked one another or not.

It was this twisted reality that had birthed, shaped and betrayed Preston Garvey. He had been broken at Quincy, where once there was easy trust, now his thoughts were colored by the paranoia and cynicism that was necessary to life in America. But he was a durable individual; despite his own hardships, he still persisted in trusting others far too easily, seeing it as his duty to protect what little sanity there was in the Commonwealth. It was to that end that he led the Minutemen when the Sole Survivor did not, often directing bands of the militia, even leading them himself, to clear out and protect threats to the _people_ of the Commonwealth. It wasn't that the Sole Survivor didn't care for the militia, or the settlements, but that he… was focused on the bigger picture.

Preston didn't quite like that analogy, it did not encapsulate what his General did for the people, what he inspired them to _do._ It would be more true to say that where Preston sought to protect remnants of the Commonwealth, the Sole Survivor sought to find more and _save_ them, to save as many people as he could from as much suffering as he could. The Sole Survivor produced miracles, whether they be a single man tearing apart Super Mutant raids outnumbered dozens to one, or inspiring people to give up the madness it took to survive and join humanity again, content to take up crafts and grow into something they couldn't have been before. Preston merely protected the results.

It was because of this that he did not question what his friend was telling him to do over the radio. The coded message had arrived first in the morning, and then was broadcast twice every hour from Radio Freedom. "Garvey, sir, the General left us with this recording this morning before departing deeper into the downtown ruins. He gave us instructions to play this several times over the week to ensure you get the message." Radio Freedoms speaker briefly cleared his throat, "Hope you receive this Garvey, I am playing the recording now." There was some brief static as the radio systems and the recording integrated before the General's voice spoke.

"Preston," his General took a deep breath, before continuing, "Anchorage was the second priority, get to Washington and prepare them."

Garvey calmly switched his radios receiver off, strangely proud that his hands weren't shaking. _They should be,_ he thought to himself. The code phrases that he and his friend had thought of to communicate over the radio signals in the Commonwealth had been extremely helpful to preparing surprises for the threats that the Minutemen might not have been able to handle, but never had he thought such a dire code would arrive. The Sole Survivor was a one man army, a veritable force of nature, there wasn't anything he couldn't handle on his own. Yet now… _Anchorage,_ he remembered from a night by the cooking fire, his friend telling a refugee group about the world before the bombs, _It was the first real battle we Americans had fought in a hundred years, and we were so unprepared when it started it wasn't even a fight in the beginning._

Anchorage, in their code, meant a full scale battle, something on the order of hundreds of enemy combatants, and such lopsided odds that success would depend more on their ability to cling to the objective than whether or not they would survive the fight.

Second Priority - attack, attack, attack, carve a path through the battle without regard to safety because to slow down would be to be flanked and destroyed. Second Priority was a do or die order.

Washington was the tamest of the codes in the message, but all more chilling in context. _Sanctuary Hills,_ the unofficial capital of the Commonwealth, where traders from beyond the wasteland came. It drew humans, ghouls and even a few escaped synths because it was underneath the Sole Survivors protection, and Garvey had his hands full combating the subtle racism that still permeated the superstitious settlers. There was more space, more water, more food and more safety there than anywhere in the Commonwealth. The settlement was a few hundred people large, making it by far the biggest concentration of humans in the wasteland within a hundred miles. But inside of Sanctuary Hills, known by only a handful of people in the entire North American continent, lay the largest armory assembled since the world ended. The Survivor had carefully stockpiled, bought, and extorted an army's worth of weaponry, combat medicine, chems and armor, along with the parts to maintain them and mountains of ammunition and fuel to power them. It was a weapon that Preston carefully guarded even from his own men, because with the contents of the Survivors hoard, a small band of people could take over a huge swathe of the Commonwealth, if not the continent, and do immense damage in the process to the fledgling civilization that was starting to grow back.

 _Prepare them._ Inside the Survivors bunker, there were four, carefully recovered suits of functional power armor. Separately, the Survivors armor was proudly displayed outside, in the fort that the Minutemen used to guard the settlement. While the Brotherhood of Steel had vastly more suits, as well as personnel trained in their use, the Sole Survivor had carefully upgraded each suit of the armor, and each one had intense custom modifications for a single operator. Those operators were trained in the use of their suits and squad tactics underneath the watchful gaze of the once-Paladin Danse, out in the wasteland where no one would be able to see them.

Between the armor, weapons, chems, training and special modifications, Preston was confident that the squad could fight any task force the Brotherhood or the Institute sent at them to a standstill. _At the very least._ Which was their purpose, to deter either faction from wiping out the settlers of the Commonwealth at the risk of the Minutemen joining the opposing side. The squad was going to debut in a month and destroy or contest a piece of old world tech that both the Brotherhood and Institute would be fighting to recover, establishing the Minutemen as a threat to both.

That had been the plan. Apparently, plans change.

Making his way through the settlement, Preston hardly had to maneuver at all, people recognized him by the hat, or by the uniform, or by the glowing energy rifle on his back. Either way, they knew him and let him through, unconsciously submitting to the friend and companion of the Sole Survivor. Preston snorted to himself, _They're almost religious about him. God, when I tell him that they have almost started worshipping him…_ Preston chuckled at the picture of his Generals face, flushed with embarrassment and denials.

He frowned then, because it was a potentially real problem. Once the Brotherhood and the Institute calmed down and the Survivor could return for a break from the politicking of both factions, they would have to spend a lot of effort in getting across that the General was only human. Preston wasn't looking forward to it, it was going to be a horrible to try and tear down the image of the settlements protector being anything less than a god. _There ain't no rest for the wicked,_ he smirked at the Generals second favorite phrase.

"No rest indeed," he muttered under his breath, raising a gloved fist to knock on his teacher's door. It swung open at a single tap and the synthetic man looked quickly around Garvey before pulling the minuteman inside.

"I heard the broadcast too," ex-Paladin Danse spoke in a hushed whisper, once the door was shut. "We are just waiting for Curie before we open the armory." Garvey nodded, looking for the carefully hidden stress in his companion's face. In the corner, Cait sat whistling idly to herself as she methodically cleaned her shotgun. Probably for the third time, judging by the shine. Next to her, Hancock looked utterly relaxed while lounging on the couch. Preston sighed, the action mirrored by the synth next to him; John was probably high on jet again. Danse turned his incredibly human eyes back towards Garvey, "Maybe she didn't hear the broadcast yet," he idly suggested, "You should go and grab her."

Garvey merely nodded.

 **East of Italica, On the Road to Alnus**

"It was a real fire dragon!" the waitress protested against Piña's knight, "I saw it with my own eyes."

Her knight, Norma, simply laughed, "as if a fire dragon would show up without anyone but the one ruddy village noticing."

The servant's cheeks grew inflamed, whether it was embarrassment at being called a liar or anger at being accused; it was obvious the woman would soon lose what control she had over her temper. "It wasn't just my people it attacked, but there was an elf that warned us about it! What do you think happened to her village?"

Laughing mockingly, Norma again attacked her, "Great! Someone pulled their ears up and ran around shouting, "I'm an elf! Fire dragon! Help!"" Norma laughed even harder at the joke.

Thankfully, before Piña had to intervene, Grey knocked the younger knight upside the head. Norma spun towards the bigger man and snarled, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Piña chose that moment to stop her escort, before they did something that she would regret, "Norma, your act is unbecoming of one of my knights, shut up and hold your tongue until I give you leave, or you may leave." Her cold voice lashed at the brash man, and his posture slumped, seeing himself outnumbered.

"Yes Princess," he muttered back, before taking another pull of his 'shitty' beer. Piña rolled her eyes at his antics, brash and arrogant he may be, he was also charming and an excellent swordsman, but neither of those qualities would save him if he drew her ire.

The waitress, momentarily forgotten, watched the confrontation with interest. If the knights and the Princess were here, but hadn't believed her about the fire dragon, why would they traveling west? Suspicious, she endeavored to listen in on their conversation as she collected the remains of their meal.

Piña nodded towards the third member of her entourage, another young lady-knight, "Hamilton, have you heard anything else about the green men and Alnus?"

The knight in question merely shook her head, "They haven't been raiding any villages it seems like. Or at least if they have, no one has lived to run away," she added darkly.

The Princess merely nodded, but Sery's motions had turned choppy at the word _Alnus_ , and her hands began to quiver. Norma, who had been watching her keenly, saw this and grabbed her arm before she could flee. "I think you know something," the man hissed.

The waitress flinched away but his grip remained a vice, and she could not flee. Piña opened her mouth, a condemnation on her lips… and then woman gave up. "Yes, sir knight, I've heard horrible things..." she confessed. Piña was still rankled at the abrasiveness of her knight, but allowed it to pass this once, information on these invaders was severely lacking.

Grey stood up, pulling out his chair and giving the servant a seat. Hamilton opened up the interrogation from across the table, "how many people have heard rumors?"

"It cannot have been that many… a week ago, after the fire dragon had fled Emroy's Apostle," Norma snorted, earning a glare from the waitress, "some soldiers or mercenaries stumbled into our caravan."

"How many?"

"I… three Ma'am."

"What did they do?"

"They begged us to let them ride in the wagons so long as we were going away from Alnus."

"Why?" Piña interjected, curious for information about the deserters.

"I'm not sure my lady," The servant turned towards the princess, "one of the three was sick, some kind of terrible disease, his hair had been falling out and his skin peeling. A mage in our group, an apprentice of old man Cato, tried to see what was wrong."

"And?"

The waitress shivered, "Lelei couldn't find any kind of parasite or known disease. All she could see was damage to his body, and she told us that his body was melting away, as if he were the wax underneath a candle. I do not know more about this, Lelei looked very shaken, after she was finished." The waitress looked pained for a few seconds, "he died the next day, his heart had simply ceased to beat."

"Back to the topic, the other two deserters, what happened to them?"

"After their comrade had died, they were a lot quieter, but they helped out around the caravan as much as they could, always pushing us to go one more mile before settling down for the night, and they were always the first men up the morning, already packing the wagons. They must have saved us at least two days," she smiled to herself, "those were very good men."

Piña, however, had her doubts. _Very, very scared men rather. "_ I take it they never told you what they were running from?"

The woman looked confused, "running, my lady? What would they be fleeing? The Apostle of Emroy never… oh. That's why she was watching them so closely; we all just thought that…" The woman blushed. Piña had to forcibly remind herself that everybody made mistakes, even if they were obvious. As if an apostle of Emroy, of all the gods, would take a… romantic interest in a deserter.

Norma, however, could not contain his incredulity, "I've listened to this shit long enough Princess! As if an apostle would take up with a group of villagers, as if a fire dragon would only be seen by them! I am not going to listen to her trick you." Piña grew furious; her knight was making an ass out of himself, in _public_ no less. She began to retort when a mocking voice behind her spoke up.

"I knew the village would attract trouble," the girl's voice pondered, "an imperial knight harassing a young woman? Traveling towards Alnus in search of war? I think I will have to join their group instead. Sery, tell Lelei to pack her things again, I think I've found something _fun_ to do."

"Yes Reaper," the woman's voice quivered in fear, and she bowed deeply before running from Piña and her knights. _Reaper,_ Piña thought, refusing to turn to face the mocking, girlish voice, _an apostle of Emroy traveling with the village._ The situation slowly coalesced in front of Piña, and it did not look like her group would make it to Alnus after all. _This is bad, very, very bad. Norma must have pissed her off, can I bargain? With what?_

"Such fear Princess," the mocking voice cooed, "have you made a mistake? I'm sure we can compromise."

 _A/N_

 _And back to moving forward. Just to let everyone know, the Sole Survivor is not a die hard Minuteman, it just so happens that most of the things he does benefits them in some way, reducing conflict in the Commonwealth, wandering around fixing things, even collecting all the most dangerous weapons. And Garvey is a biased individual, so it isn't hard to see him project his own picture onto the Sole Survivor. As far as the suits of power armor go? I am going along with the idea that the frame itself can be ruined, for example that's why you can't loot power armor frames, and I am also significantly reducing the total amount of power armor in the Commonwealth. You may see the odd gunner or raider in it, but the majority of the stuff is in the hands of the Brotherhood, and they don't sell. So, in this case, it is impressive that the Survivor both found working frames, got them back to Sanctuary, equipped them with full armor, upgraded said armor, and then customized them around one operator, while giving those operators special training under two experienced leaders. (Danse and himself)_

 _As I'm sure you noticed, those operators were **not** minutemen, except for Garvey. Remember that Garvey thinks of the Sole Survivor as a fellow Minuteman and his General, in that order. All of these operators have a very strong tie back to the Survivor. It isn't that much of a stretch to go from, 'the Survivors brute squad,' to 'the Minuteman General's brute squad.' Especially if you are biased. Which Garvey is._

 _In total, the Survivor has 6 power armor frames with armor, since both he and Danse publicly own their own frame._

 _This is taking place a while after **Blind Betrayal** , and I suppose normally the Sole Survivor has picked a side by then. For this character though, he is someone who wants to prevent the factions from wiping each other out. He has **reasons.** (I haven't decided on them, but they are there) He is also trying to reform the Commonwealth away from their fear of synths, which is why Garvey is trying to limit the anti synth as well as anti ghoul sentiment. Garvey was already for ghouls, since they are a part of the regular Minutemen, but the synth sympathies are a result of him looking up to the Sole Survivor. If the Survivor doesn't have a problem with synths, why should Garvey?_

 _Those are the biggest questions I can think of, if you have another, go ahead and ask._

 _See you in time._


	5. Chapter 5

**Sanctuary Hills**

Thump.

Thump.

The tread continued, slow, monotonous and endlessly intimidating. Concrete and asphalt somehow withstood the titanic frame that strode over it, but only just. People scrambled to get out of the way, upending carts and market stalls. Brahmin panicked, birds fled and dogs hid between their owners legs.

Nearly fifteen tons of steel and firepower strode through Sanctuary Hills.

A man outside of power armor was just that, a man, squishy, weak… vulnerable. But inside a suit, he became an unrelenting menace that could change battlefields; his tactical significance multiplied into something that would raze enemy redoubts, smash obstacles and crush enemy forces. A squad of power armored soldiers could be deployed almost anywhere, by almost any means; equipped with rebreathers, gas filters, shock absorbers, night vision, enough armor to stop small arms fire and resist heavier calibers, squads wearing the armor were unstoppable. With the inhuman strength and endurance given by servos, a soldier could wield weaponry normally mounted on tanks and carry the ammunition to feed it tirelessly. With computer assisted perception, camouflage and stealth became near meaningless terms against them. The best answer to a power armored enemy formation was to match them with power armor of your own. In lieu of the safer option, concepts laden with terms like, 'asset-denial,' 'overwhelming firepower,' and 'mass destruction,' became the only means to stop them.

They were also incredibly rare in post war America. The occasional suit might be found, but without a power core or heavy transport at hand, impossible to move. Some resided, hidden away, deep within bunkers and military fortresses- and were inaccessible to any save to the most daring and well equipped adventurer. The Sole Survivor had six, merely four of them scavenged from radioactive hellholes and two manufactured by the Brotherhood of Steel. That single faction, in all of post war America, could manufacture the suits and armor, and give the training required to use them, and even for them, it was an incredibly expensive project. They did not sell suits. They did not give out suits. The Survivor had earned _two_ of the most powerful infantry support devices _ever made_ from the inclusive Brotherhood.

While Maxson may have hated Danse for a betrayal neither had seen coming, which later had driven a wedge between him and the Survivor, the vault dweller had accomplished things that made the average Brotherhood member respect him. Respect him deeply. Respect him enough to force Maxson to devote precious resources into transporting a heavily armed squad, made up of people they didn't even know, in support of him.

Six suits was beyond what a single vertibird could carry, so two of the valuable Brotherhood transport vehicles waited south of what remained of the Sole Survivors home, near the outermost defensive line protecting the settlement. Numerous wood and metal houses, carefully organized underneath the aegis of a central fortress, hid hundreds of prying eyes as five companions clambered aboard the flying contraptions, their armor frames laden with weapons and customizations, each with a crate of supplies carefully affixed to their back.

The iconic snow white armor of the Sole Survivor would be leaving with them, carried off to wherever he was to assist him. Even knowing the suit of invaluable armor was missing from the settlement's defenses once more, the settlers themselves were content. The Sole Survivor was a giant, nearly godlike figure to them, a being that protected them just by casting his shadow over them. The armor leaving really translated to a single idea: that his shadow was growing.

Danse snorted quietly beneath his helmet, _isn't that thought a touch dramatic?_ It was easily apparent after living in Sanctuary Hills that none of the civilians had any clue that the Sole Survivor was just human. Hell, the man was probably more human than them, what with being a pre-war survivor.

He was certainly more human than Danse.

The guilt flashed, his loathing of himself flaring up anew. It had been his purpose, ever since he had found and executed the remains of his first friend, to find and hunt and kill mutants and abominations. Now though… He wished the Survivor had never gone to the Institute! No! He wouldn't have stopped being a monster, it would have been better if the Survivor had killed him! He was a mockery of a human. A thing. Engineered by scientists playing god. He should have killed himself.

But the Survivor wanted him still. Even as a synth, the Sole Survivor had called him a friend. Part of Danse hated him for that, he had thought the Survivor understood the oaths he had taken, had understood how much a synth was an abomination. He thought that the Survivor had found the same purpose that he himself had in the Brotherhood. But when the man had looked at him coolly, his own helmet off, and told Danse that being a synth didn't matter to him, the illusion that Danse had made of the Survivor fell apart.

Danse had thought, until that black night in the darkness of the listening post, that the Survivor was just like him; an exceptional soldier for the Brotherhood and loyal to its mission. But the loyal brother that had returned from infiltrating the Institute was simply a façade, a show for Maxson… and for Danse. The Institute had done something to make the Survivor doubt the Brotherhoods mission and as a result, Danse had been spared. Spared by the very people whom Danse had _known_ to be creating abominations against mankind. He hated what they stood for and he hated how they did it, kidnapping and experimenting on civilians. It was just like how the Super Mutants rose, it was just like how the Enclave operated.

 _But if this was being a synth…_ He felt no loyalty to the Institute. As far as he could tell, he was not their puppet.

Perhaps his… brother had been right to doubt the one, tiny piece of the Mission. Maybe. He still didn't entirely trust the Sole Survivor about things pertaining to the Institute, not after he had lied to Danse and Maxson both. The Sole Survivor should have trusted them with his doubts. Especially Danse. The brother he knew was… hiding something. A very big piece of himself that until that night, Danse had never even thought existed.

"Sir?" A familiar voice broke his brooding, "We need you on the vertibird; everything is ready for transport."

"Thank you scribe Haylen," He responded automatically, and then froze. Danse was dead to the Brotherhood; he would undermine their mission as he continued to live, Maxson had warned him and the Survivor as much. But that tone, his brooding, _her_ voice, had mixed him up with the desperate retreat through the Commonwealth, where their recon group had been systematically harried and destroyed. The final days before the Sole Survivor had shown up and relieved them were the hardest. With barely three team members alive, it had been a nightmare to even hold the police station as hordes of bodies hurled at it. Haylens voice brought him back there, even briefly, and he had slipped.

He had failed Maxson again.

"Danse?!"

"Shh!" He covered her face with an overlarge gauntlet, "don't tell everyone!"

She looked confused for a few moments, before blinking and, more quietly, replying, "Elder Maxson said you were a synth… is that true?" There was pain to her voice. He had failed her again.

"Yes."

Staring up at the helmeted form of her ex-commander, her gaze hardened. "You were spying on us," she accused.

"No, I promise I wasn't," what had Maxson told her? Should Danse support it? He was still loyal, even if he couldn't serve. Would it be better if she thought him an institute spy? "I hadn't even known until Maxson told me."

"And then you ran."

"I thought… time would prove me right, that I was human."

"You're not though."

He looked away, towards the still waiting vertibird, "no I'm not."

Puffing her cheeks, the field scribe released a sigh, "let's just get on the transport, I'll pretend I never knew it was you."

Danse nodded sadly, "alright."

 **Nearing Italica**

Hamilton was nervous. Well, she was usually nervous, but right now she was especially nervous. There wasn't even a big thing to be nervous about. Well, not yet, but she was sure something would happen soon.

The presence of an apostle of Emroy tended to attract trouble.

Aforesaid apostle was currently tormenting her princess.

"Mmm, why are you going to Alnus?"

"Because my father told me to," Piña replied, irritated.

The apostle, lounging on the back of a stallion beside Piña, lazily flicked a finger towards Piña, "that wasn't an answer, princess."

Piña, for her part, merely sighed and grit her teeth. This was the beginning of the forty sixth minute of her conversation with the Reaper.

She had been counting the seconds.

The first time they had gone through this exact same dialogue, the priestess had listened lazily. Then the she asked the same exact questions again. So Piña had answered again. And again. And again.

"For the same reason I have been saying, some reports of a new orc race or something, 'Green men,' appearing at Alnus and resisting the imperial army!"

Blessedly, the Reaper remained silent for a few heartbeats. Hamilton watched her leader slowly relax as the silence dragged on, before she herself began to relax.

"You never said the Imperial army was supposed to be at Alnus."

Hamilton gaped; she couldn't help herself - that was the first new sentence that had emerged from the Reapers mouth in twenty minutes. Piña herself spent a few moments composing herself, before replying.

"What do you mean?" Hamilton could just imagine as the Princess's eyes narrowed, focused on the lounging immortal.

The apostle seemed to smile, _or smirk?_ at the princesses open question.

"Before I met these… interesting people," the Reaper waved in the vague direction of the cart the mages rode in. "I found some marauders, deserters from some army fairly near Alnus."

"I see," Piña didn't like what the apostle was implying, but Hamilton wasn't surprised, all armies had deserters; it was just the way people worked. Give a man and his buddies a stick and they might not listen to you anymore.

The apostle continued, "after I executed one camp, I found more, all spreading away from Alnus. Do you see what I mean?"

Piña was silent for a few moments, and nervous Hamilton understood what the Reaper was implying. If it were one marauder group that wouldn't be a big deal, but lots of them in a relatively small space where armies _had_ been?

The princess blew out a breath, "I don't want to believe that the imperial army _and_ the kingdoms army were disbanded, but I get your point."

 _Well,_ thought Hamilton, _at least we'll be in Italica soon and won't have to deal with marauders._

 **A/N**

 _Seems a bit short, even for me, but I think I hit all the points I wanted for this chapter. Any suggestions? Feel free to leave them. Going to start bringing the elements together soon._


	6. Chapter 6

_Just a quick A/N: I removed Maccready and replaced him with Cait, who I feel is much more dynamic character and thus more fun to write. This should go all the way to any mentions of him, but if you happen to be confused on it, let me know, Ill try and fix it._

 **Above Downtown Boston**

The vertibird began to hover several meters over the rooftop of one the skyscrapers that dominated Boston's skylines, stirring the grains of sand that coated the building. The plumes of dust, stretching towards the sky, caught the morning light between their tiny grains, filtering it into a collage of light.

 _It's goddamn beautiful_ , the ghoul thought as he stared through his visor. Perhaps, after hours of drifting off in the claustrophobic confines of the exoskeleton, unmoving to conserve power, had gotten to the desiccated remains of a human. But then again, he was probably high on jet.

Hancock, knowing the latter to be true, took another deep breath of the filtered air inside his helmet, imagining he could taste the particles of oxygen and carbon that flavored what others might have called: 'stale.' The remains of his sinuses captured the metallic flavor of his helm, mixed with the faintest trace of ashes and cleaning agent. His eyes wide, enjoying the bliss of the suns caress upon their pupils, could trace the faint outline of the great wound that nearly destroyed this helmet and did succeed in cleaving a raider's skull and pulping the remains.

The sand, still pushed from where it lain, spilled over the edge of the building, and free, began its long plummet to the ground far below. A light breeze swirled through the chill of morning air, and pulled a few of the lost particles with it westward. Hancock felt the pilot make deft corrections, the steel floor beneath his feet ever so slightly shifting, to better ride this new force.

A dark hand waved in front of his face, the shadows and light dancing between its fingers as they moved up and down. Up and down, a soothing, repetitive motion that lulled the ghoul further. The jet was working its way through his system, he could feel it. He had gotten high on it so many times he could accurately judge how long a high he had left. And his lazy calculations told him: Plenty of time.

A second, a minute, and hour? Did it matter? The soothing shadows and dancing light, the gentle hovering motions of the pilot, the caress of cool, filtered air, every second was an eternity of bliss.

Until the metal hand slapped his helmet, ringing the welded steel like a bell, and breaking his reverie.

"Ah shit! What the hell?" his voice rasped out.

Curie's voice responded inside his helmet, "don't do jet, monsieur." The synth began listing the symptoms of both jet addiction and withdrawal in that annoying, nasal accent of hers.

"Enough Curie, you aint gonna make him stop by lecturing him," a second female voice broke in, with her own alien accent.

 _Why the hell can't people speak properly?_ Hancock thought, a touch of annoyance coloring his thoughts.

"He's gotta do what I did and take a… small risk. A jump if you will" the second female continued.

 _Oh shi-_

A strong shove threw Hancock off the side of the vertibird, to plummet towards the roof below.

 _Ah, what a bitch,_ the thought slowly formed in the falling ghouls head. One of the benefits of jet, the type of this that annoying doctor-robot would never admit, was that it gave a unique clarity to reality. To Hancock, the drug was both intensely relaxing and perception enhancing; it allowed him simply _think_ his way through problems, feeling every mote of information. It was one of his favorite chems, especially after the stress of running a settlement of criminals.

And so, as Hancock fell what few short meters of air separated him from the roof, he raised a mechanical fist and threw a rude gesture at the occupants of the vertibird.

"Hancock," a voice shook the ghoul from his staring contest with the vertibird, "what are you trying to do?"

The ghoul blinked. Apparently, he had already hit the roof.

 _Don't do drugs kiddos._

Hancock began to struggle in the suit of power armor. Perhaps the largest fault in the marvel of pre-war engineering was that without something like a crane, it was almost impossible to stand after it had fallen on its back. Like a radroach, once it was on its back, the suit was effectively helpless. "Can I, uh, get some help?" Hancock vocalized through the helmet.

The figure shook his head ruefully, letting out a quiet chuckle. "You know I can't give you a hand up in that giant tin can, I'm just gonna leave you like that for a bit," the man ended with a snicker. He turned towards the vertibird, before cupping his hands in front of his mouth, "Curie! Jump down here and have Cait toss you the supplies!"

A few seconds later, the floor next to Hancock vibrated, and he felt more than heard, a heavy thud as another suit of power armor landed, nearly on top of him. "Jesus Curie! That's a bit close to my face don't you think?!"

"My apologies Monsieur."

The Sole Survivor snickered again.

Hancock remained on the floor for perhaps five more minutes, stewing inside the confines of his power armor until the last of the wooden crates had been transferred from vertibird to rooftop. Unfortunately, Cait's voice was the one that broke his melancholy.

"You ready to stop taking all those chems Hancock?" the redhead whimsically asked.

"For five minutes maybe, just long enough to find out why the hell we're here, then I'm gonna hit some mentats."

The redhead blew out a sigh; Hancock could only hear it because she didn't realize that her helmets mic was still on. _Ah great, now she's playing with my emotions._ It was a good thing that Hancock was made of stern stuff. Drug addicted stuff, but he could swear it was stern all the same. "Jus' gimme your hand, arsehole."

 _And now she is laying onto the sexy accent. Great._ Regardless, he had been laying on his back long enough, and held his arms up.

Curie grabbed his left side, and Cait his right, _two beautiful babes hanging on to me, eh?_ He smirked, _though, you can't really see anything sexy underneath all the steel they're wearing._ Servos whined, the ladies pulled, and a heavy set of steel and titanium armor, as well as a desiccated lecher, were leveraged back to their feet. "Thank you ladies," Hancock made motions to dust himself off, despite the futility of such an endeavor.

"Hey! If you three are done playing over there, get out of your armor and get over here!"

Stupid Danse, actually trying to do important things. The man. Synth. Man thing. Not only did he disapprove of Hancock's recreational activities, but he had actually tried to torch the ghoul's stash once! The guy was no fun, in fact he was anti-fun.

Still, Hancock was curious as to why the Sole Survivor had them actually crack out all six suits of power armor and enough weaponry to burn everything from Goodneighbor to the Atomcats garage.

The Atomcats, now they were fun. Really cool once you got past their slightly weird obsession with paint and 'chillness.' Of course, everyone in the wasteland was a bit weird.

Unless your name was Danse. Then you were just boring.

Turning his head, Hancock saw the second vertibird take off from where it had actually landed on the roof, the Sole Survivor giving a Brotherhood salute to it with Danse twitching awkwardly, trying to ignore the rapidly departing transport. The sight warmed the irradiated remains of the ghoul's heart.

Hancock hit the control that ejected him from the back of the power armor, and with a smooth hiss, the individual pieces of the carapace unfolded, allowing him to step back and out. Now actually dusting his red coat off, he noted that both Curia and Cait had exited their suits as well. "Walk with me ladies?" the ever debonair ghoul said while extending an elbow.

Curie smiled charmingly while Cait merely snorted. The synth took his elbow while the human did not, and the three strolled daisily over toward the Sole Survivor.

 _Daisily. Huh. Is that even a word?_ The ghoul chuckled.

 **Somewhere Dark**

RAGE AND PAIN AND HUNGER

The dragon nursed its limb roughly, almost as if the limb itself was the reason for the dragon's pain. Which it was in a way, if only because the literal PAIN which emanated from it.

But the limb itself, as broken and crippled as it was, was not enough to make the dragon this hateful. The fire dragon had been alive for centuries, it had known pain before and through this crippling, it knew pain again. It was the humiliation of feeling fear, of having to escape. The dragon had panicked when the earth was sundered beneath it. It had sought escape at the time, to run away and in doing so, made itself _lesser._

 _Prey._

Dragons possessed an incredible cunning, and more often than not, were cruel. They savored the fear that they inspired, and would go out of their way to find and attack settlements of weaker creatures. This led them to certain animalistic pride. They were the absolute pinnacle of the natural order, nothing could fight them.

Something had fought the fire dragon.

Something had surprised and hurt the dragon.

A dragon was a smart creature and a near mythological titan of destruction and ruin, but was still an animal. It could not understand concepts like humiliation or hatred. Yet it did not _need_ to understand, its whole being was consumed with a desire, no, a need to rend and tear and crush and eat and burn the creature that had wounded it.

It had been caught by surprise, ambushed, as _prey_ danced around it. There was no fear, only:

Fury.

 **Italica**

Awareness returned slowly. She knew it was dark. She knew she was warm. Eventually, she found she was thirsty. And then hungry. She wriggled her toes, yet something soft stifled them. Fingers too. She was trapped under something deceptively heavy, its softness pushing her back against the…. mattress? A bed?

"Ah, you have awakened, I shall send for the mistress now, excuse me for but a moment."

This voice was so quiet that the elf had to strain her ears; even despite her enhanced hearing.

The elf opened her eyes. A soft orange glow called Tuka's attention, drawing her eyes to a candle. In the spot of illumination, she could make out a small nightstand and a candle. A single, flickering flame. The flame repelled her, weirdly. The elf thought that strange, as she had never drawn a fire spirit's ire. Yet somehow, it seemed the tiny candlelight _hated_ her. She blinked. It was simply a candle and an angry, tiny spirit. It seemed she were alone.

So Tuka was in a bed. That meant the thing on top of her was a blanket… her hands explored the sheets, searching for an edge. Even that was a struggle, not only was the bed incredibly large compared to the comfortable cots of her village, but she felt as weak as a newborn kit! Finally though, she pressed through the fabrics and cool air greeted her hand. She took a fistful of the blanket and began the laborious process of removing it.

A second, louder voice interrupted her, "my lady please, stay in bed! The mage said you had been injured."

 _The… mage?_

"I," she croaked, but her voice seemed quiet, far more so than normal. She remained thirsty, and it broke her voice. Luckily, the loud voice noticed, and a canine humanoid, dressed as a maid, of all things, appeared from just beyond the flames glow, carrying a ceramic cup.

"Oh dear, have some water for now; I'm afraid we haven't set any tea, we hadn't expected you to wake up so soon. I'll have Delilah send word to the Apostle you've woken up." A cup was pushed into her hands, and the elf began to sip.

 _The… apostle?_

This was confusing. _An apostle_ cared about her? Apostles simply didn't care about normals, they simply let them be until they found a use for one of the lesser creatures that inhabited falmart. And being used by an apostle… could end up good or bad. But it was still being used. _She might be a tool for the gods._

She needed something to balance this chaos that was falling on her.

"Where's my father?" She blurted out. A second humanoid, also dressed as a maid, curtsied before looking at her dog-eared companion.

The two maids looked at each other nervously, "I don't know, the mage said something about you being found alone," one eventually answered.

That… couldn't be _too bad_ right? If she had been alone before, but couldn't remember being alone, then she had to have been with her dad at least.

 _Right?_

"The elf is awake? Why wasn't I informed?" an imperial voice questioned.

"Ah! Princess!" the maids chorused, before curtseying, "Let us add more light to the room for you." The two maids scurried quickly, dipping the already lit candle into a brazier for the regal figure. The princess hardly even noticed as she strode up to the still bedridden Tuka, seemingly rushed.

"Elf! I assume you know some magic?"

Tuka nodded slowly, wondering if what she did with the wind really counted.

"I shall need you on the wall; an army of marauders will attempt to storm Italica soon," strain was evident in the princesses voice, despite the discipline holding her tone.

"I…" she didn't know what she should do; she had never even been out of her village before! But, according to the maids, her father must be somewhere near, he would not just leave Tuka alone. But he was not _here_. _What would father do?_ And there it was: the answer. Defend the innocent. "It's as simple as that," he had once confided in her, "it's not easy, it's simple."

The elf gazed up at the imperial princess, imagining that her eyes betrayed a hardened resolve as she nodded her chin, "I'll be on the wall."

The maids immediately protested but the princess overrode them with a wave of her arm as she nodded back to the elf, perhaps a touch of relief in her crimson eyes, "I'll show you there."

 _A/N_

 _I should have had this out last week. I apologize. A couple of excuses later, and we now have the plot rolling. Combat next chapter! Yay, one of my personal favorite things to write, but it requires more... fine tuning, so that it doesn't seem forced. Elements are going to start merging, and the collision is going to be in... 2 and 3 chapters by my current plan. Lets see how quickly I can hit that._

 _This chapter wasn't too bad to write, but for Toka, I had ended up writing her POV in three separate idea blocks, that I sort of eventually merged. If it seems forced, let me know, and I'll go over it again._

 _Until next time._


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